The gentleman ghost hovered before Medea the sorceress. "Yes, I was quite wealthy in life," he said. "Of course I left everything to my wife - but only on the stipulation that she must remarry."
"Oh? And why was that?"
"That way," he said, "I could be certain that at least one person in the world was sorry for my passing...."
The alien ambassador sidled through the museum in awe.
"You Humans have so much art! Do you have machines to make all paintings, poems, stories and songs?"
"We experimented with that, briefly," the guide said. "But humans are both cheaper and more creative. And, well, we will make art regardless."
The gentleman ghost hovered before Medea the sorceress. "Yes, I was quite wealthy in life," he said. "Of course I left everything to my wife - but only on the stipulation that she must remarry."
"Oh? And why was that?"
"That way," he said, "I could be certain that at least one person in the world was sorry for my passing...."
The alien ambassador sidled through the museum in awe.
"You Humans have so much art! Do you have machines to make all paintings, poems, stories and songs?"
"We experimented with that, briefly," the guide said. "But humans are both cheaper and more creative. And, well, we will make art regardless."
The #MastoPrompt for Saturday 7 February 2026 is:
The poem or story can include the prompt word or be about the prompt word.
@ me, if you like, or just include the #MastoPrompt tag (to allow people to follow or filter their feeds), or keep your work to yourself - all the options are good as long as you're writing.
If you're including an image please do include alt-text if you鈥檙e able to.
#Writing #SmallPoems #Poetry #Fiction #MicroFiction #SmallStories
The #MastoPrompt for Saturday 7 February 2026 is:
The poem or story can include the prompt word or be about the prompt word.
@ me, if you like, or just include the #MastoPrompt tag (to allow people to follow or filter their feeds), or keep your work to yourself - all the options are good as long as you're writing.
If you're including an image please do include alt-text if you鈥檙e able to.
#Writing #SmallPoems #Poetry #Fiction #MicroFiction #SmallStories
The thing about a base on the moon is that everyone underestimates the amount of support the Earth provides. Even with a so-called sealed environment, there is considerable support provided by the outside.
So when they established the first moonbase, it was very short lived. To be fair, it was only really intended as a temporary establishment, but it only lasted just over one and a half times the design life. Which for a NASA project is abysmal. So 36 months after being established, it was abandoned. The next one, an ESA project, lasted about the same.
The third was a Chinese military one. It was meant to be permanent, but they abandoned it after two years because of the cost of resupply.
The fourth one was an attempt at a lunar hotel. It lasted three months before the company running it went bust, and a joint NASA/ESA rescue mission had to be sent to bring the staff home.
The fifth one was a genuine attempt at colonisation, headed up by a multi-billionaire. They were well funded, and established a large semi-underground city space. Several hundred people moved there. Most of them died there. The oxygen plant worked, the CO2 scrubbers worked, but the small population did not have enough depth in skills to keep it running safely. Eight people survived the catastrophic cascade that destroyed the biome and the containment. Only seven of them made it back to Earth. The last one remained behind to manage the launch of the one remaining earth-return ship.
The sixth and seventh ones followed similar patterns, at great loss of life.
This cooled the idea of a permanent moon base for several decades.
Eventually someone tried again. This time it was an international consortium of space agencies. Their objective was to try and determine what would be needed for any sort of permanent non-terrestrial colony.
The answer was shocking to everyone.
Over thirty thousand people ended up needed to provide the required depth of skills. And for each of them approximately two hectares of wild space was needed, in addition to the farmed areas.
What was the extra space for? It provided sufficient complexity to the support biomes to ensure that they could not easily go into a systemic collapse. It provided for pollinators to breed, for detritus processors to grow, and all the millions of little things that were needed for an actual ecosystem.
It took them nearly thirty years to build it. And it remains the only one that Earth has ever successfully built.
The Selenites, as they call themselves, have, however, built two more as their population has grown.
#SF #SFF #SciFi #SpaceOpera #microfic #microfiction #tootfic #IAmWriting
The #MastoPrompt for Friday 6 February 2026 is:
The poem or story can include the prompt word or be about the prompt word.
@ me, if you like, or just include the #MastoPrompt tag (to allow people to follow or filter their feeds), or keep your work to yourself - all the options are good as long as you're writing.
If you're including an image please do include alt-text if you鈥檙e able to.
#Writing #SmallPoems #Poetry #Fiction #MicroFiction #SmallStories
The thing about a base on the moon is that everyone underestimates the amount of support the Earth provides. Even with a so-called sealed environment, there is considerable support provided by the outside.
So when they established the first moonbase, it was very short lived. To be fair, it was only really intended as a temporary establishment, but it only lasted just over one and a half times the design life. Which for a NASA project is abysmal. So 36 months after being established, it was abandoned. The next one, an ESA project, lasted about the same.
The third was a Chinese military one. It was meant to be permanent, but they abandoned it after two years because of the cost of resupply.
The fourth one was an attempt at a lunar hotel. It lasted three months before the company running it went bust, and a joint NASA/ESA rescue mission had to be sent to bring the staff home.
The fifth one was a genuine attempt at colonisation, headed up by a multi-billionaire. They were well funded, and established a large semi-underground city space. Several hundred people moved there. Most of them died there. The oxygen plant worked, the CO2 scrubbers worked, but the small population did not have enough depth in skills to keep it running safely. Eight people survived the catastrophic cascade that destroyed the biome and the containment. Only seven of them made it back to Earth. The last one remained behind to manage the launch of the one remaining earth-return ship.
The sixth and seventh ones followed similar patterns, at great loss of life.
This cooled the idea of a permanent moon base for several decades.
Eventually someone tried again. This time it was an international consortium of space agencies. Their objective was to try and determine what would be needed for any sort of permanent non-terrestrial colony.
The answer was shocking to everyone.
Over thirty thousand people ended up needed to provide the required depth of skills. And for each of them approximately two hectares of wild space was needed, in addition to the farmed areas.
What was the extra space for? It provided sufficient complexity to the support biomes to ensure that they could not easily go into a systemic collapse. It provided for pollinators to breed, for detritus processors to grow, and all the millions of little things that were needed for an actual ecosystem.
It took them nearly thirty years to build it. And it remains the only one that Earth has ever successfully built.
The Selenites, as they call themselves, have, however, built two more as their population has grown.
#SF #SFF #SciFi #SpaceOpera #microfic #microfiction #tootfic #IAmWriting
The #MastoPrompt for Friday 6 February 2026 is:
The poem or story can include the prompt word or be about the prompt word.
@ me, if you like, or just include the #MastoPrompt tag (to allow people to follow or filter their feeds), or keep your work to yourself - all the options are good as long as you're writing.
If you're including an image please do include alt-text if you鈥檙e able to.
#Writing #SmallPoems #Poetry #Fiction #MicroFiction #SmallStories
A gravelly voice spoke from under the mayor's bed.
"I hear you need a monster hunter."
The mayor sat up.
"What? Who?"
"I'm a monster. I hunt. What do you need hunted?"
"Beklo the Ogre, but..."
"I'll bring you its head."
"How..."
"I am a monster under the bed. If it sleeps, I can find it."
"I was told you're a monster," the hero said.
"So they say," said the monster.
"But you're beautiful!"
"Thank you."
"Have you always been a monster?"
"Heh. I was a young maiden. But I did something forbidden."
"And became a monster?"
"Got named a monster."
"What did you do?"
"I hit back."
